Yorgo Lanthimos: master of enticing premises.
Bless Angeliki Papoulia’s character for almost saving Alps. She’s the kind of personality that takes advantage of the suffering in others to find her own sense of self-fulfillment and twisted purpose; it’s the kind of cynical, dreary commentary I fancy from Lanthimos, although, it’s occasionally a bit predictable in the case of this 2011 feature-length. In general, the concept of Alps is interesting too, especially at first — I mean, how could an unhinged group of aggressive con-artists who play part in raising the dead metaphorically not sound keen to the ears?
Yet, what could’ve been beneficially conveyed in a clean 30 minutes tops, given its pretty limited material contained in sum, is elongated loftily into an entire-feature length, and that, my friends, is called leading your audience on till the very end for no truly justifiable reason, at least from where I’m standing.
Verdict: C+
Nicholas Winding Refn vs. Yorgos Lanthimos
“Alps” is now available to stream on The Criterion Channel.
Burning the Celluloid 
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